Author Topic: New Art vs Old Art...a Solution (Read 5084 times)

Reggie777 · « **on:** February 14, 2015, 05:47:43 AM »

As someone who tends to be a "complete"-ist, I have been wondering what to do about the new art. Should I start down that track? Or should I just stick with the old art for as long as they are available. I'm sure they will be around for a long time. And if I do buy the new art, how do I integrate their different look?

I have a proposal. Maybe, if we mix the new and old together for play, e.g. playing with 2 base games, we can have a house rule that old cities can only be completed or added to using old art tiles. And new art cities can only be added to by new art tiles. We would then have "old" cites, and "new" cities. In so doing, the new art would be concentrated and not really clash with an adjoining tile. Depending on your feelings about the new tiles, you could even award more pts for a new city, or an old city. The roads and fields would not be affected by this rule. So, we would still juxtapose new and old road, and field tiles. However, field color can vary from tile to tile, much like the patchwork fields of the countryside without clashing.

Not sure how this would look. Not even sure playing with 2 base game makes any sense. But what do you think?

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=1528.0

Hounk · « **Reply #1 on:** February 14, 2015, 06:57:42 AM »

About how long the old artwork will be available, I'm not so sure about that. It seems, some of the main expansions are already out of print. I think, they will be more likely be reprinted in the new style, but I could be wrong. At least the next small expansion seems to be "old style". Nevertheless, when I bought Carcassonne Big Box 4 last autumn, I was first planning to buy no other expansion, till the family and me getting tired of the stock presented in this BB, then adding one at a time. Because of the change of style, I reconsidered and now I have nearly everything I want and hardly anything of it played yet. (Or only played on JCZ.)

About your proposal: I think, you could elaborate it as a variant. It will always be a kind of house rule or variant, since the official rule is, that all tiles are equal to use, not regarding the type of artwork. I'm not sure, how the mix of roads and fields will look like. But It would be interesting testing nevertheless, which and how many base game tiles, which expansions in which style would be best to mix, to make the game balanced and fun to play.

Carcking · « **Reply #2 on:** February 17, 2015, 07:27:53 AM »

Since there are no tiles that feature new and old city images, you would likely have several uncompleteable cities. Cities of differing art (that would normally merge together) would be forced to not merge since there is no tile that could satisfy both art styles (putting Abbeys aside). But then again, maybe the variation features the Abbey and bolsters its importance.

Hounk · « **Reply #3 on:** February 17, 2015, 08:31:46 AM »

Folowing this argument, which is true, it would also boost for examples the cathedrals as an offensive tile to destroy big cities. And make blocking and trapping much easier by simply putting a tile of the "wrong" city close to the building of an opponent.